Thursday, August 28, 2008

Beijing Opening Ceremony

Well I finally saw the opening ceremony last night, and it was as impressive as everyone keeps telling me. After being a part of a few live events (and a fairly large one mind you), it's breath-taking to see what that production group was able to create. I asked my old boss if the opening ceremony gave him some ideas. He said yes, but they would never ever come close to that kind of budget. I guess he helped create the Atlanta Opening ceremony, but that paled in comparison. And I think every event will pale in comparison after this. What live show will ever get a 100 million dollar budget, over 10,000 volunteer performers, and the visionary talents of one of the worlds most creative cinematic directors Zhang Yimou (Or in Chinese Yimou Zhang. Known for both art and wuxia pien films such as: Raise the Red Lantern, Happy Times, Hero, House of Flying Daggers). I just feel bad for Vancouver and London, they have a pretty high bar set. But as I mentioned in a previous blog I am very excited and proud for the Chinese. I love the people, and I love the country. There were a lot of eyes on this event, and I think China did an excellent job showing the positive attributes that can be found within their nation: hospitality, hard work, pride, community, and family.

Some other notes:

• Who cares if they digitally enhanced the fireworks. I think that's innovation if you ask me. The artists are given a completely abstract idea and they have to perform it live. Like I always say, "sweeter not harder."

• The boxes were incredible. You know what I'm talking about.

• China is going to be rolling in the tourist dollars for the next couple of years. Which kind of sucks, cause I want to go back, and now it's going to be very crowded.

• I don't think that the event ever could happen in a democratic state. Most of those people were volunteers, and just happy to be there. In the US we'd have to worry about unions, they would inflate the budget, yadda yadda yadda. As much as you may dislike communism you have to admit they put on a good show.

• There was a point where Putin and George Bush seemed to be having a heated argument during the celebrations. Apparently the Australian prime minister leaked that they were talking about the Georgian conflict that happened earlier that week. A) You're a leader of a country. Isn't there some leader code stating that you don't blab things you overhear to the media? B) I would have loved to hear that conversation, I wonder what it sounded like...